A Peoria Blue Carbuncle dinner.

On Friday night, a full seven days before the second day after Christmas, the Hansoms of John Clayton met for dinner at the home of one of our brightest lights. I don't record too much here of Peoria's revived Sherlock Holmes society, as we're still a pretty small and maturing group, and I'm curious to see what develops without all the pomp and circumstance societies often record their every event with. Suffice it to say we met to celebrate "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle."

Goose was not served, but a fine ham was, and since ham was what Christopher Morley reported could be found on the sideboard at the inn called Alpha some years after Sherlock Holmes stopped there, it seemed a fine enough feast to go with our celebration of that December tale.

We discussed "Blue Carbuncle" over drinks and sugar-cinnamon pecans, with many a challenge posed and answered, a number of good points made and mulled over, a review of the tale's cinematic and audio adaptations from Barbara Roden's compilation in the excellent Case Files series, and the eventual wandering to other topics, before we eventually wandered out into the winter night.

And for those of you who have awaited my giving some ground on CBS's Elementary, this was the first occasion I've had to meet some excellent folk who started on Holmes's path by enjoying that show, moving on to BBC Sherlock, and then starting to read the original Canon itself. I don't know if we'll consider this Christmas miracle enough for me to throw open the window and shout down to a passing urchin, "Boy! You know that boxed set of Elementary DVD's they have on display at the local Wal-mart? Take this credit card and go buy the biggest one, then run it over to Bob Cratchit's house!"

But it is, as "Blue Carbuncle" tells us, the season of forgiveness. So maybe I'll just forgive Elementary its foibles for the season.